monkeygirl

Well, this kid is over 6 feet tall, and I'm just barely 5 feet tall, so he basically acted like the whole "black belt thing" didn't matter. Then the teacher walked in and saved his life

John pretty much summed it up. The TKD school you go to may be excellent for self-defense, and while many schools are similar to yours, there are many that are not. A lot of people in TKD (usually in a federation like WTF) do a LOT of competing. Tournaments and competition can be healthy and beneficial to your training when used correctly and in regulated portions, but if your training focuses entirely on tournaments and their often unrealistic rules, people tend to look at you as more of an athlete in a sport than a pracitioner of a martial art. The TKD "sport athletes" get a lot of attention from people who are very against that sort of thing, like no-holds barred martial artists, among others. Also, they are a little more public because their competitions may get televised, or they may become a movie star, or whatever. The whole "McDojo" thing makes TKD a pretty popular art, so it's on the tip of everyone's tongues. Large generalizations eventually lead people to believe that TKD as a whole is nothing but a sport, simply because those martial artists who choose to do nothing but compete get more attention than the more traditional practitioners who study the art for its practical purposes. I have nothing against TKD competitors, but that's just my theory.

Okay, thread is officially off-topic, I'm realizing. This conversations is all nice and lovely, but let's try to get back on topic, shall we?

Don't they use a jo staff (much shorter than a bo staff but longer and thicker than escrima), or does somebody else use that?

Illegitimate: by dictionary standards it means wrong/illegal/incorrect. The more common usage of the word means "not good enough". And of course, there's the whole "illegitimate child" thing, when a married man impregnates a woman who is NOT his wife. Fundamentalist: someone who likes to follow the "original" rules. Usually deals with religious people.

Hehe...there's a Swedish kid in my History class who threatened to lock me up somewhere. I have no idea why he was so angry, but he was majorly ticked. Basically he kept threatening me. One of my classmates just stared at him and said "Dude, she's a blackbelt!". It was kinda funny.

I would think that a strong grip would be especially useful for grapplers and the like.

I've seen this happen a few times myself. What can I say? Most black belt tests (with a few notable exceptions) don't judge your intelligence, just your techniques. Very few blackbelts are mathematical geniuses, so you kind of take what you can get at tournaments. Maybe (and I say this with all sincerity) we should start giving judges arithmetic quizzes before they're allowed to judge! Even considering that they get calculators, I've seen a judge or two that can still manage to get it wrong.

Well, it's good to know that not all judges are easily wooed by flash, SS. When I said "looks good in competition" I meant to suggest that competition is the only place where you could use it, since a significant number of tournaments are still about flash and fancy spins, regardless of your obvious traditionalist integrity. Battousai, you bring up an interesting point! If you CAN do those fancy flips and spins, you can do pretty much anything. You become familiar with the weapon and how it moves by making it do extreme and difficult movements. And of course, they're pretty intimidating, in a Dueling Banjos sort of way.

Well, there's still the part of HITTING each other that they don't do in track & field. Wrestling and boxing can certainly be considered martial arts, IMO. And finally, what a style (such as ITF TKD) does in competition is not the entirety of the art. I did a lot of sport competition but I also trained in self-defense and realistic sparring, all in the same dojo. I understand what you're saying about the heavy emphasis on tournaments, and there are some schools that train ONLY for competition. But the practices of a few schools should not dictate the definition of the entire art. It's an interesting concept, but I sincerely hope we (and by "we", I mean TKD and other arts that place an emphasis on sport) never degrade to that point.

My experience was a little different...I had a lot of confidence from the beginning. When I reached brown belt however, things started to seem harder...I felt like my classmates were becoming better fighters than I was, and I was having so much difficulty fighting them. Then, when I got kicked in the eye, I developed a major sparring phobia and basically had to re-learn how to spar altogether. I basically had to do what you did, and FORCE myself to spar rough like I used to despite the risk. Even though I was risking getting hurt by being aggressive, to be passive would risk getting my butt destroyed. So: nice article, definitely one I can relate to

If you have a question for Kung Fu/Wing Chun practitioners, the best place to put it would be in the Chinese Arts forum. I'll move it there now.

It's hard to give someone "combos" because they really all depend on the current situation at hand. The kind of technique itself is only half of the combo: its application is equally (well, maybe a little more than equal) important. Just practice your moves, and focus on timing their release. You want to figure out when the best time is to throw a reverse punch or roundhouse kick, etc. When a person's guard is in such-and-such position, what technique(s) can you use? When my opponent throws a roundhouse kick, what does he leave open? What can I counter with? Think about things like that and they will come pretty easily with practice. When you can do that without thinking, you can do some pretty amazing things.

kotegashiNeo has touched on an interesting point that I would like to bring to your attention: left-handed people think differently than right-handed people. It's a matter of brain orientation. We all know that our brains are divided into right and left halves. The left half is responsible for symbolic, systematic and logical thinking. It's the reason why an unexperienced artist's self-portrait will look like a cartoon or smiley face. The left brain is telling him the way an eye, a nose, and lips SHOULD look, despite what the eye truly sees. Thus the portrait is inaccurately drawn. The right half is responsible for artistic, "outside the box" thinking, and allows us to perceive things exactly as they are, not how a pre-existing "symbol system" says they should be. Because of the whole cerebral cross-over thing, the LEFT brain is dominant in RIGHT-handed people, and vice versa. So what's the result? Right-handed people tend to lean towards this symbolic form of thinking and have difficulty overcoming their left-brain tendencies. Left-handed people have difficulty conforming to a symbol system. This does not affect their intelligence or worth as a person (contrary to the Moroccan belief that left-handers are devils or cursed people), but it can allow them to perform certain tasks more easily than others. Each type of person (left, right and ambidextrous) is predisposed to the qualities of their dominant brain half. With practice, they can overcome this, but I'm not too concerned about that right now. Now that we have that bit of introductory info out of the way, I'll get to my point: generally speaking, from a purely neurological standpoint, left-handed people will think differently than right-handed people. So why not fight differently? May sound kind of off-the-wall, but who knows? Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you guys.

It's fun to learn how to spin it around all fancy-like and it looks good for competition, but you need to learn the realistic applications, too. I wish my dojo had focused on that aspect of the bo. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fun doing the katas, and it isn't too difficult to pick out the more realistic techniques from those katas. However, the bo staff is a great self-defense weapon: if you should happen to pick up an object during a self-defense situation, bo staff and escrima training will be of the most help to you, considering what objects would be available. Sticks, pipes, bottles, any long thin objects. My point is: if you're going to have the weapon in your hand, you might as well learn its practical applications, they could save your life. In response to your question: I honestly don't know of a single good website that teaches martial arts techniques of any kind (barring a few gymanstics sites, but those aren't really MA). Then again, I haven't done much looking.

Tae Kwon Do literally translates to mean "hand foot way", so I've never understood why so many dojos insist on cutting out the "hand" part (although someone mentioned earlier on this thread that TKD wanted to be different from Karate, seemed plausible). I think it's great when a dojo teaches its students a nice balance between hands AND feet, instead of favoring one or the other exclusively. Let the student choose which one s/he favors, if any.

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community. Opening Points to Remember: 1. While this article refers to the training of white belts, it is meant to cover the first six months of training. Depending on the style, your students may or may not still be white belts after six months of training. For our purposes, this article will refer to the process of “learning how to learn” as the stage of white belt. With that in mind, don’t be discouraged if your students are still “learning how to learn” as green belts. 2. This article mentions the term “techniques” many times. However, it should be made clear that this does not necessarily refer to a kata. The term “technique” could very easily refer to a sparring or self-defense technique; whatever applies to your particular style. If you ask a student of the martial arts “Which is the most important belt in your ranking system?” he or she will probably tell you “Black Belt.” However, if you ask an experienced instructor the same question, you’ll get a very different answer: “White Belt.” How can this be? Generally speaking, white belts learn relatively few physical techniques. On the surface this would make it seem as though white belts don’t have much to learn. How could white belt possibly be the most important? Let’s take a deeper look: you may be surprised. There are several things that white belts should learn, regardless of style: How to tie the belt — new white belts usually practice this with dedication, as if it were a complex kata. Respect — white belts should learn how the chain of command works in the dojo. Proper dojo etiquette — when to bow, who to bow to, etc.; this may include calling the instructor “Sensei” or a similar title. Discipline — white belts should learn to focus their eyes, mind, body and learn to have good behavior. Coordination — some white belts need to go through an adjusting period to get used to the awkward and demanding movements of the martial arts. Technique Constants — white belts should learn the small things that will remain constant throughout the rest of their training. For example, a dojo may have its students always step forward with the left leg when beginning floor work techniques. If this is a constant, unchanging truth, white belts should learn this as soon as possible to prevent any confusion. When you add this mental training to the physical training and techniques, white belts have just as much — if not more — to learn as the higher ranks do. It is up to the instructor to make sure white belts receive proper training in the above areas, as well as give the white belts a good foundation upon which they can build the rest of their training. The following section explains and stresses the importance of certain mental training aspects. Learning how to learn is a very simple concept. Just as learning how to read helps you to learn history, science and other subjects, being a white belt helps you to become a martial artist. Learning how to learn involves the following (which will be discussed later): Adjusting to instructors’ teaching style Gaining self-confidence Memorizing technique constants/Learning how to analyze techniques Discovering how to approach new techniques All of these are important parts of a white belt’s basic training. White belts must adjust their bodies, coordination and mental attitude to that of the martial arts, but that’s not all. One of the first things they should adjust to is the teaching style of their instructor. This can include speech patterns, body language and the general attitude of the instructor. Once the student has adjusted, they should be able to learn from the instructor easily. The most important thing about teaching white belts is to instill a sense of confidence in them. They need to understand that nobody is perfect and that they must learn from their mistakes. Positive reinforcement and recognizing achievements will often make a student be more willing to try new things in the future. If a student has confidence in themselves, they will have confidence in their technique. Confident technique is more likely to be fast, sharp and strong than un-confident technique, which usually consists of limp wrists, loose fists and zero enthusiasm. White belts have their entire training ahead of them to focus on mastering physical techniques, however. By teaching respect, technique constants, and other things that will stay with the student forever, instructors are preparing students for what lies ahead. These concepts will stay with them! It doesn’t just sound nice, it’s conceivably true. Even simple things can stick, such as how a foot should be positioned during a stretch. If the student’s mind is eager and uncluttered by thoughts of complex katas/techniques, they are more receptive to the important basics. In other words, their “glass is empty.” Take advantage of this! Limit the amount of techniques for white belts and focus on preparing them mentally for what’s to come. An added benefit of having few techniques: white belts can slow down and focus on the details, such as chambers/foot positions of kicks, position of punches in relation to the body and so forth. By making it simple for white belts to break down techniques like this, they will develop good practicing habits. However, if white belts have a vast number of techniques, practicing them in a meaningful way will be time-consuming and difficult. Instructors should encourage students to analyze techniques for themselves, and also point out what to look for when doing these analysis's. By doing this, the moves become more personal: they become the students’ own. Moreover, by practicing breaking the movements down, the students will learn what to look for in other techniques, such as hand/foot placement, speed, arm/leg positioning, etc. Careful observations of new techniques allow the students to perform them accurately the first time. By practicing these observation skills at white belt, they have learned how to learn! To a brand-new white belt, many aspects of the martial arts are foreign, difficult and confusing. If properly encouraged and motivated, they will face their personal challenges and overcome them. Say a student is having difficulty remembering which kick to do when the instructor calls for a front kick. If the instructor suggests to the student a memory trick, such as “for a front kick, turn your body to the front” or something similarly helpful and it works, they may use such memory tricks in the future when learning new techniques. Through trial-and-error, they will learn how to approach new techniques in the most efficient way for them, a way which will ensure they remember the technique for a long time. If the instructor does not encourage students to do this, they are in danger of mindlessly wandering through their training, just barely getting by. We’ve already discussed how techniques at white belt should be a limited few, but what about the techniques themselves? Which techniques should a white belt learn? White belts should learn the basic, but essential, techniques. These are techniques that are simple and easy to learn, but still very useful. These techniques are usually also good training tools. Take the sidekick, for example: it is very easy to learn and arguably one of the most effective kicks to use in sparring. An instructor might teach a student (of any rank) how to break a board with a sidekick, thereby teaching the student speed, power and accuracy. A jab is also good for the same reasons, plus it can be used during drills that build hand speed. To summarize: White Belt is a journey of self-discovery for the martial artist. The goal of training at this stage should be to build a good, solid basis for the rest of that person’s martial arts career; the student should learn how to learn.

Any good dojo, IMO, should make a clear difference between what you do in the dojo, and what you do in a tournament. Dojo sparring should work power and be a little more realistic. You should also have a lot of self-defense training, because this too can be different from dojo sparring. The only time your sparring should be anything but that is in preparation for a tournament. Dojo sparring and tournament sparring are two separate beasts. Both are good training tools, both are very difficult, and both can consume a lifetime in the pursuit of their perfection. I think it's very very important to remember that TKD point sparring is not meant to be realistic street fighting. Because of this, it's going to have some funky rules sometimes. Like kata, it's part of the "art" in "martial art" and has a place and a purpose. Unfortunately, too few TKD dojos stress this fact, and that's where TKD (or any art that is artistic, and not exclusively martial) can start making all MA's look bad. If they try to use their unrealistic, high-speed low-power training tool to defend themself against a 300-pound bruiser with a baseball bat, they're probably going to get trashed. But if they use the discipline of mind that (IMO) they're supposed to have, and make the mental switch to go into self-defense mode, then they are using the style as it's supposed to be used. If you feel that you shouldn't have any point-sparring, kata, or whatever, "encroaching" on your no-holds-barred self-defense skills, then you should probably find another art. I personally like a little art in my martial. I'm a little confused, though: why do you feel that TKD can make all styles look bad? Before I joined a dojo, all I knew of martial arts was what I saw on TV and in movies, which was rarely ever pure TKD. In fact, I knew absolutely nothing about TKD...I didn't have biases or anything. Of course, I'm just one person and can't pretend to represent other people, but because of my experience, I'm having difficulty understanding this "Tae Kwon Do makes martial arts as a whole look bad" mentality.

Sorry I haven't checked in on this thread in awhile. Kind of forgot about it. Trust me, I'm not going to try to use this technique on the street. I wouldn't use a jump back kick for that matter, either. I just want to learn this technique because it's difficult and I like a good challenge. Plus, it works a different set of muscles than I'm used to. In response to sano's question: my old dojo never used this technique, a friend of mine showed it to me a few days before I started this thread. Currently, I'm getting fairly good at the double kick. When I try to do three or four in a row, I still have a lot of trouble. Also, I can do the kick pretty well when I lead with my right foot, then switch to left. But when I lead left, switch right, I have a lot of problems...my right leg is the dominant one when it comes to speed and precision. Any suggestions for equalizing my legs, or is repetition the best remedy? That applies to all kicks, not just the double kick. Thanks a lot guys, I know I'm asking a lot of kinda silly questions. I don't have a sensei to correct me anymore and I'm feeling slightly lost when learning new techniques.

I really would have been upset if the movie ended there, Red J....I need lots of closure in movies like these! Besides, I think it was part of the book. Either way, I was pleased with it.

Read "The Birds" by Daphne Du Maurier

When I was 5 or 6, I used to wonder what would happen if everyone in the world belched at the same time.

Santa with a temper...

I think that depends on your definition of meditation. I define in-class meditation as preparation for class...just closing my eyes and clearing my mind of schoolwork, etc., telling my muscles to remember their movements...that kind of thing. At-home meditation for me is prayer in a very relaxed state. In-class meditation could be the same exact thing if you wish it to be.

They do make non-alcoholic eggnog, but I've never had any...of ANY kind